Response to "Untitled" by Jessica

            “Untitled” by Jessica Mullino is about a girl named Andy who has to write a story for class, but her bad procrastinating habits coupled with A.D.D. render her unable to formulate a story. She puts off the story writing with different excuses, ranging from “nine more minutes of peace” to watching TV. In the end, she rushes to finish her story, waiting till the last minute (and probably turning it in late) to write a story about a girl who must write a story for a class but can’t think of an idea.

            It’s neat to see a this frame or mirror story, in which the Andy’s story in the story happens to be the same reality in the Fiction Writing class for which the story is to be written. Furthermore, Andy finally decides to write a story, and the story she writes mirrors her own situation with the school deadline approaching. The frames could continue endlessly.

            I found myself entertained by and very much believing the jumping descriptions of the things Andy sees, which mirror her mental distraction. Her musing is interrupted by trips to the kitchen, her trips to the kitchen bring her to thoughts of dinner, which remind her of the scene that occurs before the story when she spills spaghetti. The overall tone of the story reminds me of the cattiness that is stereotypical of girls living together: the way Andy and Baylor taunt each other. I definitely felt myself immersed in the life of this college girl living with other college girls and the distractions that keep them from completing their schoolwork in a timely manner. This was not accomplished in an immature, childish way either.

            There’s a lot of things that this story needs to make it work. First, it needs more character development; second, the character needs to change in some way. Does the character have any desire other than to brainstorm a story? If not, I don’t think that’s enough. Also, I would think about the verb choices in the story. “She wore a vacant stare” could be made stronger, and a better verb could be substituted in the sentence, “Andy’s boredom and A.D.D. helped her avoid the task,” etc.

Response to "Secret Park" by Cole

            “Secret Park” by Cole Eady is a story about three friends who return to a spot they where they hung out in high school, called the Secret Park. In high school, they went there to smoke cigarettes and drink, but now, they are going there to get the overweight, cigarette-addicted protagonist in decent physical condition. His old buddies, Sean and James, were both athletes in high school, and the protagonist wasn’t. The protagonist seems to compare himself to the other two, particularly James. He is a thirty-year-old chain smoker, while James is a “chiseled” doctor who drives a Mercedes. At the end, the protagonist witnesses a life-threatening scene and makes a discovery that not all is roses in James life, when James stops running, paralyzed by an anaphylactic shock.

            The story is refreshingly original. I like the idea of these old acquaintances returning to a place they used to do “tomfoolery” in high school. It shows us that, while James and Sean have grown up and moved on with their lives, the protagonist feels like he has not made much of himself. I think the story could use some more dialogue to bring out the things that define each character. This would make the characters deeper. I didn’t find much depth or roundness in any character in this story. I’m not even sure if any of the characters experience a change at the end. This is something that should be clarified, and the best and easiest way to do that might be through adding more meaningful dialogue.

            There are some really great word choices scattered throughout the story. The life of a doctor is “sublime,” the narrator “fiddles” with his wristwatch as he lies, the “grueling” final lap, the “drenched Beastie Boys T-shirt that was trickling sweat down onto his shorts.”

            There are also some things that need elaborating, mostly relating to the characters. For instance, at one point the protagonist observes a father and child in the park, and says the father was apathetic toward the child. This seems a little out of place, because we see nothing that shows why the father is apathetic. It seems to say something about the character, as well, to judge the father that way; there needs to be further development of the cynicism of the protagonist.

Response to "Meow" by Cary Bayless

“Meow” by Cary Bayless is a heartbreaking, yet heartwarming story about a young man named Cyril who is likely autistic, and his encounters with pretty girls and with some folks at Captain D’s he considers his friends. Although the character might not be changed at the end of the story, he has definitely arrived on the hopeful end of a realization, the realization that nothing was wrong with Jimmy-Cat, but that Jimmy-Cat is actually a she-cat, that she was pregnant, and had kittens. He views the world with a simplicity that many people are unable to comprehend—particularly the young women in the story, Annie and Kelly. Although he feels like he shouldn’t be sneaking into this girl’s bedroom and reading her diary, he is unable to comprehend why it is so unacceptable, and for this, the girls call him a “creep.”

            I love the first-person perspective Cary tells this story in because it gives us a really powerful view from the mind of the autistic narrator. The descriptions from his point of view are great, particularly the foul smells emanating from the dumpster, the counting sequences, ketchup and mayonnaise and “Jimmy-Cat eating monsters,” as well as Cyril’s detached descriptions of his own feelings about the things that are happening. The other characters, Earl and Annie, are developed through small segments of dialogue that is very effective in making the characters believable, even if the story isn’t about them.

            I’m not sure it’s enough for Cyril to simply go from fear for the cat to joy when he realizes it has had kittens. While everything in the story is believable and works in its place, I feel like something is missing from the story; I’m just not sure what. I think we need to see Cyril more frustrated when he is asked to leave Annie’s apartment, and maybe you could use this internal conflict to show the frustration he’s feeling about his inability to connect to these girls. You could carry that over to his encounter with Earl, maybe having a scene where Earl is trying to figure out why Cyril seems upset. I’d like to see Cyril really learn something, if that’s possible. Also, I think you should change the title: maybe “Fourteen steps” or even just “Cyril.”

"Perfect" by Laurel

            “Perfect” by Laurel is about a young girl who went off to college and intentionally changes her personality to the “perfect” person she idealizes. To complete this transformation, she takes up a rebellious attitude toward her parents, abandons her best friend from high school Darcy, and acts ridiculously coy around guys. She is also portrayed as extremely vain, and I found myself cringing at the awkwardness of the scenes where she is interacting with guys, thinking they’re interested in her when they are really just laughing at her. At the end, sitting alone to a dinner she made for her neighbors, she comes to the realization that she has become a monster. We see her change occurring as she invites her old friend Darcy over to hang out.

            Right off the bat, I would give this girl a name. I don’t think we’re gaining anything by not knowing her name, and things get really confusing, especially in the middle when she is interacting with Carly and her boyfriend in the restaurant. I really like the italicized thoughts of the protagonist; they help exteriorize the self-absorbed nature of this girl. Another thing I found problematic was something we’ve discussed in class before: the character is unlikeable through the entire story. Only at the end do we see her do anything commendable, anything at all that makes us want to route for her. There needs to be at least something that makes us want to see her change, and I didn’t pick up on anything but her vainness in all the content leading up to the realization on the final page.

            While the dialogue is good where it appears, it might be a little too sparse, and in between the dialogue there is too much telling of what the character thinks instead of showing it. The italics are good for showing her thoughts, but a lot of the other descriptions should be transformed into dialogue, or even the narrator talking aloud to herself. Overall, a really grabbing down-to-earth narrative with a character every girl can probably relate to, full of uncomfortable, awkward situations that make the reader long the happy ending that arrives just in time.

"Cats" by Rhamah

            “Cats” by Rhamah is a story about a girl who works at a cat shelter, the owner of the shelter, named Cat Lady, and the two prospective buyers that come to the shelter. The main cat Rhamah focuses on in the story is a little two year old cat named Lily that was abandoned just two weeks before. The first family that comes to the shelter is taken aback by the smell, and before leaving, they almost select Lily to take home, but decide not to when they discover she only has one eye. Rhamah does a good job of characterizing the protagonist and the Cat Lady in this incident: the cat lady is so excited by the idea that a family might be coming to retrieve a cat, but the protagonist wisely determines that they would not make a good home for the pet, because they aren’t willing to put up with the difficulties of owning a cat. The main difference in the two characters, it seems, is the Cat Lady is prone to wishful thinking and dreaminess, while the protagonist is down to earth.

            The boy that comes to the shelter seems to be a genuinely caring person, but Lily repays his kindness with a vicious bite. I see several possible themes working independently in the story: the heartlessness of some people; the cruelty the cats inflict because they have been mistreated; and the inability to know who or what to trust, as we see the trusting boy attacked by the hostile cat. I’d like an ending that shows how these themes might work together and play out, and what the overarching message might be according to the author, whether there is a profound takeaway for us or whether she is just saying you can’t trust cats.

            I loved the descriptions of the cats, the shelter, the people. It was very sensual in its appeal to the visual, the olfactory, and the tactile (I could almost feel allergies coming on). I’d also like to know why the narrator is working at the shelter. Is she a volunteer? Is she doing this as some kind of punishment, or does she actually want to be there? It’s not clear enough from her character as he or she is portrayed in the story.

"Incarnations of Burned Children" by David Foster Wallace

            “Incarnations of Burned Children” by David Foster Wallace is a short story that occurs within one contained scene, the scene of a baby that gets into a pot of boiling water and ends up horrifically burned. While the aftereffects are not explored in the story, there is sufficient evidence to assume the father of the child will become bitter toward the mother, who was in the kitchen when the baby got burned. The descriptions of the mother seem to contrast those of the father. While the father seems rightly afraid for the life of the baby, the mother seems doll-like, immobile, paralyzed by what has happened—making it seem like she has taken this tragedy too inwardly to be able to do anything for the child. I gathered from the ending that the child lives and grows up a very empty and depressed person, but I could also see the ending as a sign that the baby dies. It was unclear to me.

            The images in the story were really powerful, the language raw and unorganized, which really makes the reader feel the desperateness of the father. Small, seemingly unrelated details give the story a haunting feel, such as the eerie bird that spies on the scene from the yard, unaware of the tragedy that it is witnessing. I think this detail is particularly haunting, because it shows that the tragedy this family experiences is nothing to the bird; I think it leaves us with the idea that horrific things happen all the time but sometimes nobody is there to witness them.

            In the second half of the short story, there were some sentences that became jumbled and simply did not make sense. I’m not sure if they made sense in Wallace’s head or if he was trying to create that sense of desperateness, but I don’t think it was necessary to have jumbled sentences to do that.

Response to Nate's "Lemon Drops"

            “The Summer of Lemon Drops” by Nate Lundberg is a story about a teenager’s unfortunate summer doing community service in Florida. He works under the eye of the park ranger John, a half crazy man whose face gives no clues about him, according to the narrator. The narrator, on the other hand, describes his face as one that gets him into trouble. Judging from the narrator’s freely voiced thoughts and some details about drug use in college, he seems like the kind of person who would occasionally find himself in a fix. Ultimately, it is the lemon drops that make the summer bearable.

            I think the conflicts in this story are a little tougher to locate, like a buried treasure in the sand, but I do think they exist, and I think the fact that they’re not startlingly obvious makes it such an interesting read. I think the main conflicts going on here are the college-educated young man being deceived and outwitted by the non-intellectual, but more experienced park ranger. On the second conflict, we see the narrator’s internal struggle with his bad luck, which becomes a conflict of the narrator versus the universe. I think the dialogue is really well done. I can really see these two characters conversing, and I am getting a strong sense of their personalities, even though we know nothing about John. In fact, since his face offers no description of him, we must judge him from his dialogue, and I thought you did a good job of accomplishing this. I also liked the writing style, as I think it reflects the narrator’s personality very well: a college student most concerned with having a good time, having money, seeing girls, etc.

            There are several grammatical errors throughout the story. There are missing apostrophes, “there” that should be “their,” missing commas and other missing punctuation. I would also like to see something that gives more depth to the narrator. You could do this by delving into the relationship with the sister, his frustration with the universe, or his perception of John, focusing on how he thinks John sees him in more detail than simply “college student.”

Response to "Losing Sincerity" by Taylor

            “Losing Sincerity” is a wild story about a hotel manager’s take on a huge event the hotel has organized. The manager, Brad, narrates the story in first person. I think the central idea of the story is the different personalities Brad recognizes in himself: his work personality and his non-work personality. There is more than sufficient evidence from the story, from the thoughts of the narrator, and from his interactions with his employees that he is, like he says, a prick. However, he suggests that outside work, he is not so hard to get along with.

            I got pretty caught up in the craziness of this story, which had a lot of characteristics of a wild frat party story, but which also had a much more sophisticated element: the fact that this was not a frat house, but a hotel. I was able to pick up all the hotel and restaurant lingo, which really tied me strongly to the characters and events in this story, as I work in a restaurant myself. I found myself laughing out loud at the ludicrousness of the drunken crowd and the annoyance of the manager. I felt like I could really see all the crazy things going on in this hotel, and I empathized with the stressful and critical emotions of the manager. I think managers typically need to have a no-nonsense attitude.

            I’m not sure if there’s any conflict or any change at all in Brad, and this is a problem. At the end of the story he’s not different than he said he was: after the stress of the night is over, he seems more relaxed and happy to have a drink with Alyson. But he already told us this would happen, so we are not seeing any change coming over him other than the change we already anticipated would occur. Also, there’s a lot of confusion in my mind about the relationship between him and Alyson. It seems pretty obvious that he doesn’t want a serious relationship: he does not even care that she apparently doesn’t remember who stayed with her the previous night—turns out it was him. I think the story is about a guy who wants to have fun but has to endure the misery of work, but I just don’t see any conflict.